RUCKINGE CHURCH.
"And we said how dreary and desolate and forlorn the church was, and how long it was since any music but that of the moth-eaten harmonium and the heartless mixed choir had sounded there. And we said: 'Poor old church! it will never hear any true music any more'. Then she turned to us from the door of the Lady Chapel, which was plastered and whitewashed, and had a stove and the Evangelical Almanac in it, and her eyes were full of tears. And, standing there, she sang 'Ave Maria'—it was Gounod's music, I think—with her voice and her face like an angel's. And while she sang a stranger came to the church door and stood listening, but he did not see us. Only we saw that he loved her singing. And he went away as soon as the hymn was ended, we also soon following, and the church was left lonely as before."—Extract from our Diary.
The boat crept slowly through the water-weeds
That greenly cover all the waterways,
Between high banks where ranks of sedge and reeds
Sigh one sad secret all their quiet days,
Through grasses, water-mint and rushes green
And flags and strange wet blossoms, only seen
Where man so seldom comes, so briefly stays.
From the high bank the sheep looked calmly down,
Unscared to see my boat and me go by;
The elm trees showed their dress of golden brown
To winds that should disrobe them presently;
And a marsh sunset flamed across the wold,
And the still water caught the lavished gold,
The primrose and the purple of the sky.
The boat pressed ever through the weeds and sedge
Which, rustling, clung her steadfast prow around;
The iris nodded at the water's edge,
Bats in the elm trees made a ghostly sound;
With whirring wings a wild duck sprang to sight
And flew, black-winged, towards the crimson light,
Leaving my solitude the more profound.
We moved towards the church, my boat and I—
The church that at the marsh edge stands alone;
It caught the reflex of the sunset sky
On golden-lichened roof and gray-green stone.
Through snow and shower and sunshine it had stood
In the thronged graveyard's infinite solitude,
While many a year had come, and flowered, and gone.
From the marsh-meadow to the field of graves
But just a step, across a lichened wall.
Thick o'er the happy dead the marsh grass waves,
And cloudy wreaths of marsh mist gather and fall,
And the marsh sunsets shed their gold and red
Over still hearts that once in torment fed
At Life's intolerable festival.
The plaster of the porch has fallen away
From the lean stones, that now are all awry,
And through the chinks a shooting ivy spray
Creeps in—sad emblem of fidelity—
And wreathes with life the pillars and the beams
Hewn long ago—with, ah! what faith and dreams!—
By men whose faith and dreams have long gone by.
The rusty key, the heavy rotten door,
The dead, unhappy air, the pillars green
With mould and damp, the desecrated floor
With bricks and boards where tombstones
should have been
And were once; all the musty, dreary chill—
They strike a shudder through my being still
When memory lights again that lightless scene.
And where the altar stood, and where the Christ
Reached out His arms to all the world, there stood
Law-tables, as if love had not sufficed
To all the world has ever known of good!
Our Lady's chapel was a lightless shrine;
There was no human heart and no divine,
No odour of prayer, no altar, and no rood.
There was no scent of incense in the air,
No sense of all the past breathed through the aisle,
The white glass windows turned to mocking glare
The lovely sunset's gracious rosy smile.
A vault, a tomb wherein was laid to sleep
All that a man might give his life to keep
If only for an instant's breathing while!
Cold with my rage against the men who held
At such cheap rate the labours of the dead,
My heart within me sank, while o'er it swelled
A sadness that would not be comforted;
An awe came on me, and I seemed to face
The invisible spirit of the dreary place,
To hear the unheard voice of it, which said:—
"Is love, then, dead upon earth?
Ah! who shall tell or be told
What my walls were once worth
When men worked for love, not for gold?
Each stone was made to hold
A heartful of love and faith;
Now love and faith are dead,
Dead are the prayers that are said,
Nothing is living but Death!
"Oh for the old glad days,
Incense thick in the air,
Passion of thanks and of praise,
Passion of trust and of prayer!
Ah! the old days were fair,
Love on the earth was then,
Strong were men's souls, and brave:
Those men lie in the grave,
They will live not again!
"Then all my arches rang
With music glorious and sweet,
Men's souls burned as they sang,
Tears fell down at their feet,
Hearts with the Christ-heart beat,
Hands in men's hands held fast;
Union and brotherhood were!
Ah! the old days were fair,
Therefore the old days passed.
"Then, when later there came
Hatred, anger and strife,
The sword blood-red and the flame
And the stake and contempt of life,
Husband severed from wife,
Hearts with the Christ-heart bled:
Through the worst of the fight
Still the old fire burned bright,
Still the old faith was not dead.
"Though they tore my Christ from the cross,
And mocked at the Mother of Grace,
And broke my windows across,
Defiling the holy place—
Children of death and disgrace!
They spat on the altar stone,
They tore down and trampled the rood,
Stained my pillars with blood,
Left me lifeless, alone—
"Yet, when my walls were left
Robbed of all beauty and bare,
Still God cancelled the theft,
The soul of the thing was there.
In my damp, unwindowed air
Fugitives stopped to pray,
And their prayers were splendid to hear,
Like the sound of a storm that is near—
And love was not dead that day.
"Then the birds of the air built nests
In these empty shadows of mine,
And the warmth of their brooding breasts
Still warmed the untended shrine.
His creatures are all divine;
He is praised by the woodland throng,
And my old walls echoed and heard
The passionate praising word,
And love still lived in their song.
"Then came the Protestant crew
And made me the thing you have known—
Whitewashed and plastered me new,
Covered my marble and stone—
Could they not leave me alone?
Vain was the cry, for they trod
Over my tombs, and I saw
Books and the Tables of Law
Set in the place of my God.
"And love is dead, so it seems!
Shall I never hear again
The music of heaven and of dreams,
Songs of ideals of men?
Great dreams and songs we had then,
Now I but hear from the wood
Cry of a bat or a bird.
Oh for love's passionate word
Sent from men's hearts to the Good!
"Sometimes men come, and they sing,
But I know not their song nor their voice;
They have no hearts they can bring,
They have no souls to rejoice,
Theirs is but folly and noise.
Oh for a voice that could sing
Songs to the Queen of the blest,
Hymns to the Dearest and Best,
Songs to our Master, her King!"
The church was full of silence. I shut in
Its loss and loneliness, and went my way.
Its sadness was not less its walls within
Because I wore it in my heart that day,
And many a day since, when I see again
Marsh sunsets, and across the golden plain
The church's golden roof and arches gray.
Along wet roads, all shining with late rain,
And through wet woods, all dripping, brown and sere,
I came one day towards the church again.
It was the spring-time of the day and year;
The sky was light and bright and flecked with cloud
That, wind-swept, changeful, through bright rents allowed
Sun and blue sky to smile and disappear.
The sky behind the old gray church was gray—
Gray as my memories, and gray as I;
The forlorn graves each side the grassy way
Called to me "Brother!" as I passed them by.
The door was open. "I shall feel again,"
I thought, "that inextinguishable pain
Of longing loss and hopeless memory."
When—O electric flash of ecstasy!
No spirit's moan of pain fell on my ear—
A human voice, an angel's melody,
God let me in that perfect moment hear.
Oh, the sweet rush of gladness and delight,
Of human striving to the heavenly light,
Of great ideals, permanent and dear!
All the old dreams linked with the newer faith,
All the old faith with higher dreams enwound,
Surged through the very heart of loss and death
In passionate waves of pure and perfect sound.
The past came back: the Christ, the Mother-maid,
The incense of the hearts that praised and prayed,
The past's peace, and the future's faith profound.
"Ave Maria,
Gratiâ plena,
Dominus tecum:
Benedicta tu
In mulieribus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus
Nunc et in horâ mortis nostræ. Amen."
And all the soul of all the past was here—
A human heart that loved the great and good,
A heart to which the great ideals were dear,
One that had heard and that had understood,
As I had done, the church's desolate moan,
And answered it as I had never done,
And never willed to do and never could.
I left the church, glad to the soul and strong,
And passed along by fresh earth-scented ways;
Safe in my heart the echo of that song
Lived, as it will live with me all my days.
The church will never lose that echo, nor
Be quite as lonely ever any more;
Nor will my soul, where too that echo stays.